Source: UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING submitted to
FOOD DIGNITY: ACTION RESEARCH ON ENGAGING FOOD INSECURE COMMUNITIES AND UNIVERSITIES IN BUILDING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY FOOD SYSTEMS
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0224245
Grant No.
2011-68004-30074
Project No.
WYO-474-11
Proposal No.
2015-02267
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
A5141
Project Start Date
Apr 1, 2011
Project End Date
Mar 31, 2018
Grant Year
2015
Project Director
Porter, C. M.
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
1000 E UNIVERSITY AVE DEPARTMENT 3434
LARAMIE,WY 82071-2000
Performing Department
College Of Health Sciences
Non Technical Summary
We are precipitously close to peak oil, peak soil, and a tipping point for atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Over a billion people were undernourished in 2009, the highest number in the 40 years for which comparable statistics have been available. Within the US, SNAP participation rates are breaking records, with a quarter of our children enrolled, and we face an obesity epidemic. Community and social movements for food justice and sustainability suggest paths to a much brighter future and they are making these paths by walking. In this integrated research, extension, and education project, we will trace the paths taken by five US communities and collaborate in mapping and traveling the most appropriate and effective roads forward for creating sustainable community food systems (SCFS) for food security (FS). This work includes tracking the impact of a "community organizing support package" in each community to engage low-income people in improving community food security and economic development. The package includes support for a steering committee, a half-time facilitator, minigrants for seeding action, and "animators" to help people who are not accustomed to applying for grants to plan for and implement these actions. The rationale for this project are that: (1) While there is significant community organizing for SCFS for FS, research on its impact is limited. (2) Effective and scalable strategies for engaging food insecure people in such organizing are needed so that those most affected can help solve our society's hunger and obesity problems. Research methods include developing deep retrospective and prospective case studies of the SCFS for FS work in each community. This includes using Photovoice, interviews, focus groups, and surveys. We also will develop and implement new protocols for quantifying the value of harvests from selected food production projects and for estimating the economic impact of the minigrant-funded projects. This Food Dignity project contributes to the long-range improvement in and sustainability of U.S. agriculture and food systems by building individual and institutional capacities and civic infrastructure for supporting SCFS for FS action and research through: - Documenting and disseminating the best practices of past, current and future SCFS for FS work in five communities. - Developing new methods and adapting existing ones to document, assess, and evaluate SCFS for FS action and capacity building. - Designing, assessing, and refining a scalable and transferable organizing support model for SCFS for FS work that includes people from food insecure communities in leadership roles. - Creating foundations for later research, e.g., by providing baseline data from these five communities for later research and by building research design foundations for assessing the complex factors impacting health and food security. - Preparing the next generation of graduates from multiple disciplines to engage in this sustainable food system work by creating new minors in this area at University of Wyoming and at Cornell University.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
45%
Developmental
45%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
7046050302060%
2042410107015%
6046110301010%
8056050302015%
Knowledge Area
604 - Marketing and Distribution Practices; 704 - Nutrition and Hunger in the Population; 805 - Community Institutions, Health, and Social Services; 204 - Plant Product Quality and Utility (Preharvest);

Subject Of Investigation
6110 - Economy of the United States and sectors thereof; 6050 - Communities, areas, and regions; 2410 - Cross-commodity research--multiple crops;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education; 3010 - Economics; 1070 - Ecology;
Goals / Objectives
1. Identifying, developing and evaluating scalable strategies for organizing SCFS for FS, in collaboration with communities facing food insecurity by: a.Developing and comparing retrospective case studies of SCFS for FS work in 5 communities: -Albany County, WY with Action Resources International -Wind River Reservation, WY with Blue Mountain Associates -Tompkins County, NY with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Tompkins County -Brooklyn, NY with East New York Farms! -Alameda County, CA with Dig Deep Farms & Produce b.Testing and evaluating a SCFS organizing support "package" with each community, including support for a community organizer, a steering committee, microgrants, community "animators" or catalyzers, and community-based participatory research (CBPR) activities. c. Building and analyzing 4-year prospective case studies with each community, including documenting participation and actions/initiatives and tracking the impact of microgrants and other support package strategies. d.Evaluating the SCFS for FS impact of selected community initiatives as nested case studies. For example, we will quantify harvests and estimate economic and nutritional values of food produced in these gardens. We will also develop user-friendly, standardized methods that can be used in urban food producing systems for assessing other garden-related processes that stakeholders are interested in monitoring. 2. Expanding capacity to catalyze, support and research SCFS for FS in cooperative extension, community-based organizations (CBOs), citizens living in low-income communities, and universities through: a.Conducting the activities in Goal 1. b.Creating in-site and cross-site communities of practice with the 8 project partners for sharing and generating learning. c.Creating new undergraduate, cross-disciplinary minor areas of study in sustainable food systems (SFS) at University of Wyoming (UW) and Cornell University (CU) and expanding internship and service learning opportunities for students at these institutions and at Ithaca College (IC) in ways that serve both student and community needs and build on their assets. d.Developing several interactive online courses on SCFS for SF, plus policy, practice and research briefs, available nationally for cooperative extension and CBOs and for integration into university courses.
Project Methods
Retrospective case study methods: - Photovoice: Each of the 5 sites will facilitate two Photovoice sessions about sustainable community food systems for food security (SCFS for FS) challenges, features, and successes in their communities. - Document collection and analysis: Community organizers will collect and provide project documents to research team. These will inform development of interview and focus group protocols and of the codebook. - Interviews and focus groups: We will conduct interviews (6-10 per case) and focus groups (~2 per case, related to potential nested cases) with SCFS for FS stakeholders/actors in each community. - Narrative inquiry analysis: Then we will conduct narrative inquiry analysis of transcripts and check and revise this with participants. Narrative inquiry asks people to share stories of their work which then are analyzed, holistically to summarize themes and lessons learned. - Coding and theory development: The team will draft, test, and finalize a codebook for constant comparative analysis and grounded theory development. Prospective case study methods: The same methods as above will be used to track the progress of SCFS for FS development in each site to extend the case studies and qualitatively evaluate the impact and utility of the "community organizing support package" each community receives. Results will integrate findings from the methods below. The Photovoice component will be repeated in Year 5, the last year of the project, with the same participants as possible. This is the first such "pre-post" use of Photovoice. Nested cases The sites and the academic research teams will select 1-2 initiatives per site to document and evaluate as nested case studies during Years 2 and 3. We will develop or apply any additional, appropriate evaluation instruments according to priorities of the community and/or larger pressing SFS research questions. For example, for a new good-food box scheme, we might conduct standard USDA food security surveys pre/post. Agroecological research Drinkwater will lead development and testing of protocols for agroecological assessments of community gardens, including assessments of the quantity and quality of produce harvested, compost production, and other measures such as the degree of insect damage that might be of interest to the participating community garden organizations. Produce yields in 25-30 community gardens in NYC will be measured. This data collection, plus addition of other measures of interest to food producers in the 5 communities, will expand to other communities in years 2-5. Microgrant research We will develop and implement a protocol for estimating the economic impact of the microgrants that each community will disseminate as part of their community organizing support package. This will track the outcomes of each microgrant awarded over the 4 years they are dispersed as part of this project, with 6-month and 1-year follow ups. Capacity development measures Gervais and Porter will adapt or develop a survey to measure perceived capacity development among project team partners (both academic and community) for engaging in SCFS for FS work.

Progress 04/01/11 to 03/31/18

Outputs
Target Audience:Our main focus was to engage people and to learn how to engage people as actors (as opposed to as audiences) in shaping local food systems. Over five years, with NIFA support, the five community partner organizations directly engaged hundreds of community members in community food system action and education. This included 92 minigrantees and dozens of steering committee members, community-based researchers, and citizen leaders. Through their community-based activities, partners reached thousands more people in workshops and local events, farmers markets and CSAs, gardener networks, youth programs, volunteer days, and fresh food donations. Also, via regional and national conference presentations, we reached over 1200 practitioners and scholars across many disciplines and fields. We also reached over 1100 college students via guest seminars and another approximately 300 in classes taught by Food Dignity team members in the academic partner institutions. At UW, a total of 55 students have enrolled in (41) or graduated from (14) the new sustainability minor developed as part of the Food Dignity project, with a quarter of those enrolled in the food system track. UW launched the minor in 2013. Cornell University's new Community Food Systems undergraduate minor, launched in 2017, had 23 students complete the capstone course in 2018. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Undergraduates: The CBOs provided intern and other mentee opportunities to over 24 undergraduate students through paid summer internships. Faculty reached hundreds of students thorough new undergraduate courses related to sustainable food systems and food security and thousands via invested guest lectures. CBO leaders also reached hundreds of students via guest lectures. Graduates: We supported five masters students and three PhD students. Association with Food Dignity also provided students with professional development opportunities at conferences and workshops. Technical personnel: one lab technician worked part time all five years at Cornell University assisting with garden harvest measures at Cornell University. Community-based researchers and leaders: over the life of the project, dozens received financial, technical and/or mentoring support from community organizers and leaders who are Food Dignity partners. Academic and community partners and co-investigators in Food Dignity: Most members of the team participated in regional and/or national workshops each year for networking, professional development, and/or to disseminate our Food Dignity findings. We also hosted annual meetings at each of the participating locations, plus visits to Detroit and New Orleans. These meetings included anti-racism trainings and networking with and learning from local activists, government workers, and academics and, as always, each other. Additionally, 16 partners participated in a 3-day digital storytelling workshop with StoryCenter in March of 2016 and 7 of us hosted and attended a writing workshop in September of 2016. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Information about and results of the Food Dignity project have been disseminated to communities of interest via numerous national and local efforts including: 48 presentations at national or international conferences; 45 presentations at local or regional events; 65 publications (including 29 peer-reviewed papers, 3 conference papers, 2 book chapters, 3 practice briefs, 7 reports, 8 graduate theses, and at least 13 locally-distributed community reports or publications); 36 programs or events; 25 workshops; and 53 media coverage events (including newspaper/magazine articles, television or radio pieces, or online media spotlights). Additionally, we have a project website (www.fooddignity.org), a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/FoodDignity/), a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGaMKu4eL5zH2hZn76XHrug), and various online media presences hosted by FD partners about related work (Ithaca Garden Harvest Log Blog http://blogs.cornell.edu/ithacaharvestlog; Storying the Foodshed Blog http://blogs.cornell.edu/foodstories; The Garden Ecology Project Blog http://blogs.cornell.edu/gep/gardeners/; and ENYF! YouTube channels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLIv5g7BQt0; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUae50ZAV_s#t=66). We anticipate publishing another 6-12 peer reviewed papers and further developing the website over the coming 18 months. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We achieved the research, extension, and education goals proposed for the Food Dignity project. In the project proposal in 2010, the principal investigator wrote that the project title, Food Dignity, aims to convey both a statement of values and a hypothesis. The ethical stance is "that human and community agency in food systems is an end in itself." That remains right and good even if our project had not found evidence for the scientific hypothesis "that building civic and institutional capacity to engage in sustainable community food systems for food security will improve the sustainability and equity of our local food systems and economies." Our primary research question was: how do, can and should communities work to create more sustainable, equitable and food secure communities? Our secondary question was: what are means for creating more equitable community-university collaborations in research, action and education? We learned about both by doing. For the first question, we relied upon the collective decades of expertise and experience the five community-based organizations (CBOs) brought to the table. Also, we traced the CBOs' work and Food Dignity subaward investments during our five years of collaboration. For the second question, we were striving for such relations in our own collaborations. We primarily used multiple case study research methods to document and learn from actions, with each of the five CBOs and the project itself. This included conventional case study methods such as interviews (150), document analysis (>3000), and participation and observation (documented in over 100 field notes files, in addition to many of the co-investigators being CBO insiders). We also used digital storytelling, including in the first person. Most importantly, the collection of five Food Dignity Collaborate Pathway Models, one with each CBO, comprise the core of each "case." Working with Monica Hargraves at Cornell and Cecilia Denning of Action Resources International, each of the five CBOs developed a collaborative pathway model that represents the theories of social change underlying each of their activities by linking them to desired and actual short, medium, and long-term outcomes. In addition, we examined the minigrant programs each CBO developed and conducted some quantitative agroecological research. The five CBOs led the extension component, including providing five years of minigrant support for citizen action to improve food security, hosting workshops and events, mentoring community leaders, and developing projects relevant to their communities. To provide just one project example from each organization, Feeding Laramie Valley in Laramie, Wyoming founded a Kids Out to Lunch summer lunch feeding program. Blue Mountain Associates of Wind River Indian Reservation started the first Tribal Farmers Market. Whole Community Project in Ithaca, New York nurtured multiple food justice initiatives and their leaders, including a new county-wide food policy council, a market in a neighborhood that was a stop on the underground railroad, and work to increase the number of farmers of color. East New York Farms! founded new intergenerational production gardens. Dig Deep Farms broke ground on a food hub. (They have each done much more, and led these project and more with funds and/or collaborators within and beyond those associated with Food Dignity. This is about contribution rather than attribution.) We also successfully launched new undergraduate minors in sustainable food system studies at Cornell and University of Wyoming, as described in the 'target audience' section. Learning guides that collate and contextualize products from our key arenas of research and results are being released on our website. Our publications, especially in a July 2018 special issue of the Journal of Food, Agriculture and Community Development, and our new website (www.fooddignity.org) share process and products from this body of action and research about both research questions.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Bradley, K., Gregory, M.M., Armstrong, J.A., Arthur, M.L., Porter, C.M. (2018) "Graduate students bringing emotional rigor to the heart of community-university relations in Food Dignity." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.003.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Daftary-Steel, S. (2018) "Entering into a community-university collaboration: Reflections from East New York Farms!." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.013.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Gaechter, L and Porter, C.M. (2018) "'Ultimately about Dignity:' social movement frames used by collaborators in the Food Dignity action-research project." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.004.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Gregory, M.M., Peters, S. (2018) "Participatory research for scientific, educational, and community benefits: A case study from Brooklyn community gardens." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.010.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2018 Citation: Hargraves, M. (2018) "Learning from Community-Designed Minigrant Programs in the Food Dignity Project." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.007.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Hargraves, M. and Denning, C. (2018) "Visualizing Expertise: Collaborative Pathway Modeling as a methodology for conveying community-driven strategies for change." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.005.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Hargraves, M., Woodsum, G., Porter, C. (2018) "Leading Food Dignity: Why us?" Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1)
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: McMichael, P. with Porter C.M. (2018) "Going public with notes on close cousins, food sovereignty, and dignity." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.015.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Niedeffer, M. (2018) "Entering into a community-university collaboration: Reflections from Dig Deep Farms." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.011.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Porter, C.M., Woodsum, G., Hargraves, M. (2018) "Introduction and invitationto the Food Dignity special issue." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1)
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Porter, C.M. (2018) "Fostering formal learning in the Food Dignity project." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.016.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Porter, C.M. (2018) "Growing our own: Characterizing food production strategies with five US community-based food justice organizations." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.001.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Porter, C.M. (2018) "Triple-rigorous storytelling: a PI's reflections on devising case study methods with five community-based food justice organizations." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.008.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Porter, C.M. (2018) "What gardens grow: Outcomes from home and community gardens supported by community-based food justice organizations." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.002.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Porter, C.M. and Wechsler, A.M. (2018) "Follow the money: Resource allocation and academic supremacy among community and university partners in Food Dignity." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.006.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Sequeira, E.J. (2018) "Entering into a community-university collaboration: Reflections from Whole Community Project." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.014.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Sutter, V. (2018) "Entering into a community-university collaboration: Reflections from Blue Mountain Associates." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.012.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2018 Citation: Swords, A., Frith, A., Lapp, J. (2018) "Community-Campus Collaborations for Food Justice: Strategy, Successes and Challenges at a Teaching-Focused College." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.009.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Woodsum, G. (2018) "The cost of community-based action research: Examining research access and implementation through the Food Dignity project community support package." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.021.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Woodsum, G.M. "Entering into a community-university collaboration: Reflections from Feeding Laramie Valley." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.017.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Blue Mountain Associates, Sutter, V., Hargraves, M., & Denning, C. (2017). Blue Mountain Associates: Food Dignity project, a collaborative pathway model. Available online at https://www.fooddignity.org/collaborative-pathway-models.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Dig Deep Farms, Neideffer, M., Hargraves, M., & Denning, C. (2017). Dig Deep Farms in its larger context, a collaborative pathway model. Available online at https://www.fooddignity.org/collaborative-pathway-models.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: East New York Farms!, Vigil, D., Hargraves, M., & Denning, C. (Producer). (2017). East New York Farms! a collaborative pathway model. Available online at https://www.fooddignity.org/collaborative-pathway-models.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2018 Citation: Hargraves, M. (2018) "Introduction to the Food Dignity Values Statement." Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 8(Supp. 1), Available online at https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.08A.018.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Feeding Laramie Valley, Woodsum, G. M., Hargraves, M., & Denning, C. (Producer). (2017). Feeding Laramie Valley: a collaborative pathway model. Available online at https://www.fooddignity.org/collaborative-pathway-models.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Whole Community Project, Sequeira, E. J., Hargraves, M., & Denning, C. (Producer). (2017). Whole Community Project: a collaborative pathway model. Available online at https://www.fooddignity.org/collaborative-pathway-models.


Progress 04/01/16 to 03/31/17

Outputs
Target Audience:In our no-cost extension years, this past one and the one coming up, our focus is on producing and disseminating final products from our five funded years of action, research, and education and reaching audiences via this dissemination. We are no longer, as Food Dignity, otherwise investing directly in reaching new audiences. However, we are reaching people with the publications and presentations listed in this report as products, with the CU and UW minors and the courses within those, with extensive guest lectures by Food Dignity partners, and with the sustained and expanded work of the 4 of the 5 CBOs that partnered in Food Dignity. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In our no-cost extension years, this past one and the one coming up, our focus is on producing and disseminating final products from our five funded years of action, research, and education. We are no longer, as Food Dignity, investing directly in providing training and professional development opportunities. However, enrollment in the Cornell minor has begun and at UW it has continued to be the most popular minor. Our last three graduate students finished their degrees in 2016. The CBOs continue to provide the internship and mentorship opportunities they came into the project with or expanded during the Food Dignity collaboration. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The main modes of our dissemination in year six (since March 2016) are the publications and presentations listed in this report. Our current website, www.fooddignity.org, is also kept updated with our products, as well as new media reports about our collaboration or about the work each partnering CBO does. (E.g., UW and Cornell magazine have profiled Porter this past year about Food Dignity and the new garden-related collaborations UW has with Feeding Laramie Valley and, especially Blue Mountain Associates and other partners in Wind River Indian Reservation. See www.uwyo.edu/uwyo/2017/18-2/snapshots/growing-food-security-2.html and http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2357) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan for much more public dissemination of the process and products from our work. We are producing at least another 15 peer-reviewed publications, a project mini-documentary and some other individual case story videos, a suite of education modules, and a much more extensive website that organizes and showcases the full Food Dignity project process, products and results. A special, open-access Food Dignity issue of the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD) with 12-15 additional peer-reviewed papers and commentaries. To be released late 2017 or early 2018. Videos giving a guided tour of each of the 5 CBO Pathway Models. To be released summer 2017. Additional peer-reviewed papers in other journals, including (but not necessarily limited to) about harvest measure results from New York, collaborative pathway model development methods, and a study comparing the farmers' market in East New York with the market in the capital city of Fiji. In pre-prints online by early 2018. At least two additional mini-documentary videos, particularly for use in formal educational modules but that also stand on their own. By end of 2017. Educational modules, at least three, mostly or only as guided study through other Food Dignity products, by spring 2018. A new Food Dignity website that shares and organizes everything the project has produced and learned with both conventional and alternative ways to navigate the content. Late 2017/early 2018.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We have met every project objective except for the development of modules for use by the public and for integration in formal education. The other main outstanding arena of work is to disseminate the remaining results of our work. To date we have produced 12 peer reviewed publications, in addition to over 45 national presentations and posters and many video and gray publications, and have a basic project website. We have launched the two new undergraduate minors, developed many new courses, and reached thousands of undergraduates and supported 8 graduate students. Our first goal has been to identify, develop and evaluate scalable strategies for organizing sustainable community food systems for food security (SCFS for FS), in collaboration with communities facing food insecurity. Our progress on these goals since the last report includes the below. Pathway Models: We have completed and finalized a Pathway Model with each of the 5 collaborating community based organizations (CBOs). A Pathway Model is a graphical counterpart to the familiar columnar logic model. It organizes and characterizes the programs and activities of an organization and articulates the organization's theories and strategies of change, thereby illuminating how overall goals and objectives are approached and achieved. The leads on this modelling, Dr. Monica Hargraves of Cornell's Office for Research on Evaluation (CORE) and Cecilia Denning of Action Resources International, have adapted the Pathway Model approach that CORE created with NSF and NIH funding (Brown Urban & Trochim, 2009) to a Collaborative Pathway Modelling approach that is more participatory and grounded. Hargraves and Denning have also produced 6 narrated slide shows, to be converted to videos, for publication on our own and on project partner websites. The first introduces Collaborative Pathway Modelling and the other five, currently in revision, provide guided tours of each CBO's individual model. One example of continued and expanded community organization action from each CBO after NIFA-supported Food Dignity community organizing support packagesended in March 2016: Blue Mountain Associates successfully hosted another season of the Wind River Tribal Farmers Market that started with NIFA support in the summer of 2016. A funder of East New York Farms! gave them an additional $10,000 in 2016 so they could continue the minigrant program that NIFA had supported with each collaborating CBO in Food Dignity. Feeding Laramie Valley now serves the state of Wyoming by hosting and organizing AmeriCorps volunteers to serve community food security organizations and projects in the state. This largely how they maintained and expanded the paid internship program work that NIFA had supported in Food Dignity. Dig Deep Farms credits the NIFA support via Food Dignity (financial, technical, and in lending credibility) with enabling their unique and cutting edge county government-community collaboration to survive their high-risk first few years and become the established organization with multiple, multi-million funding sources today. Their approaches earned them the 2014 California Counties Innovation Award. They also recently broke ground on their new food hub. Whole Community Project (WCP), an initiative under the Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins County (NY) umbrella, which started in 2006 (including Porter's involvement then), closed as an independent endeavor simultaneously with the end of the Food Dignity funding. This is particularly ironic as this is the project that inspired the community-based design of Food Dignity and had great success in nurturing and supporting new grass-roots leadership in community food security by people from food-insecure communities. For example, two people that WCP supported the most earned Cornell University Civic Fellowships to continue the work they started with WCP (and NIFA) support. The research team feels there are at least as many lessons to be derived from WCP's story as from the four other organizations who have grown and sustained their work after the end of Food Dignity support. Our second goal for Food Dignity is expanding capacity to catalyze, support and research SCFS for FS in cooperative extension, community-based organizations (CBOs), citizens living in low-income communities, and universities. The case of Food Dignity itself and of university roles in supporting SCFS for FS: We have an advanced draft Pathway Model for the community-university collaboration in the project. Several of the cross-case presentations and the mini-documentary video mentioned above include dissemination of lessons under this goal. We have conducted exit interviews with 36 members of the Food Dignity team for analysis. Publication about lessons from the project coordinator: Wechsler, A. M. (2017) Overcoming the Venn diagram: Learning to be a co-passionate navigator in community-based participatory research. Research for All. 1 (1): 147-157. Community of practice development in and beyond the nine organizational partners in the Food Dignity project itself and of university roles in supporting SCFS for FS: We held a writing retreat workshop with 8 team members in September 2015 and our last all-team meeting with 24 members in January 2016 in New Orleans. Porter was invited to serve on the knowledge and education working group of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU) Feeding the Future initiative. She was a lead author on that part of the report which should be issued in spring 2017, and heavily derived much of what she contributed from her Food Dignity experience. She was also recently invited to serve on the executive committee of the Inter-Institutional Network for Food, Agriculture, and Sustainability (INFAS) executive committee and is likewise bringing Food Dignity experience to that table in guiding INFAS priorities and spending. New minor areas of study in sustainable food systems (SFS) at University of Wyoming (UW) and Cornell University (CU): UW has continued its overall sustainability minor with a food system track, and it continues to be the most popular minor at the university. http://www.uwyo.edu/haub/academics/undergraduate-students/sustainability.html Porter has given invited lectures about community food systems to over 1000 students in UW courses since the inception of Food Dignity. Cornell and Ithaca College faculty also are often invited to give related guest lectures, also reaching over 1000 students over the years. Cornell launched its new Community Food Systems minor in 2016. East New York Farms! and Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins County are community partners in that minor, which has garnered additional funding from the Engaged Cornell initiative. https://devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/undergraduate/minor/community-food-systems As reported to NIFA in previous annual applications and progress reports, the Food Dignity team decided to allocate all of the online course development resources to wrapping multi-media case study products with content and questions to facilitate structured learning about SCFS for FS. We have generated much more content for wrapping per the lists above, and this will be one of our 3 focus areas in our 7th, no-cost extension year.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Wechsler, A.M. (2017) Overcoming the Venn diagram: Learning to be a co-passionate navigator in community-based participatory research. Research for All, 1 (1): 147-157.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Daftary, S., Porter, C.M., Gervais, S., Marshall, D. & Vigil D. (2017) What grows in East New York: a case study of East New York Farms! an examination of expectations of urban agriculture. In C. Bosso & R.L. Sandler (Ed.), Feeding Cities: Improving Local Food Access, Security, and Sovereignty. Earthscan/Routledge: New York, pp. 95-112.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Gregory, M.M., Leslie, T.W. & Drinkwater, L.E. (2016) Agroecological and social characteristics of New York city community gardens: contributions to urban food security, ecosystem services, and environmental education. Urban Ecosystems 19 (2): 763-794.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Conk, S. & Porter, C.M. (2016) Food gardeners productivity in Laramie, Wyoming: more than a hobby. American Journal of Public Health. 106(5): 854-856.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Porter, C.M., McCrackin, P. & Naschold, F. (2016) Minigrants for community health: a randomized controlled trial of their impact on family food gardening. Journal of Public Health Management & Practice. 22(4): 379386.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2016 Citation: Porter, C.M. Growing public health with gardens. Presentation at the American Public Health Association Annual meeting. November 2, 2016. Denver, CO.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2016 Citation: Hargraves, M & Denning, C. Visualizing Expertise, Complexity, and Design  Collaborative Pathway Modeling with Community Organizers. Presentation at the American Evaluation Association annual meeting. October 26, 2016. Atlanta, GA.
  • Type: Other Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2017 Citation: Porter contributions in 2016 to the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU) Feeding the Future report forthcoming in 2017.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Shannon Conk. (MS, Kinesiology & Health, August 2015) Quantifying yields of home and community gardens in Laramie, WY. Chair: C.M. Porter, University of Wyoming
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2012 Citation: Peggy McCrackin (MS, Kinesiology & Health, December 2012) Building Sustainable Food Systems through Local Gardening Projects: Testing the Impact of Minigrants on Generating Project Action. Chair: C.M. Porter, University of Wyoming
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Katie Bradley. (PhD, Geography, August 2015) What is Allyship? Personal, interpersonal, and structural perspectives on food justice. Chair: R. Galt, University of California at Davis.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2016 Citation: Megan Gregory. (PhD, Horticulture, December 2016) Enhancing Urban Food Production, Ecosystem Services, and Learning in Community Gardens through Cover Cropping and Participatory Action Research. Chair: L. Drinkwater, Cornell University.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: John Armstrong. (PhD, Adult Education, August 2015) Engaging Stories: Meanings, Goodness, and Identity in Daily Life. Chair: S. Peters, Cornell University.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2016 Citation: Lacey Gaechter. (MS, Kinesiology & Health, August 2016) Its Ultimately about Dignity: Framing Food Dignity. Chair: C.M. Porter, University of Wyoming.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2016 Citation: Elizabeth Lewis. (MS, Kinesiology & Health, May 2016) Why do Gardeners Grow? Perceived Outcomes of Garden Food Production in Albany County, Wyoming. Chair: C.M. Porter, University of Wyoming
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Melvin Arthur. (MS, Kinesiology & Health, December 2015) Northern Arapaho Food Sovereignty. Chair: C.M. Porter, University of Wyoming


Progress 04/01/15 to 03/31/16

Outputs
Target Audience:Our main focus is to engage people and to learn how to engage people as actors (as opposed to as audiences) in shaping local food systems. In our fifth project year, with NIFA support, the five community partner organizations directly engaged hundreds of community members in community food system action and education. This includes 15 minigrantees, dozens of steering committee members, 20 community-based researchers, and 40 citizen leaders. Through their community-based activities, partners reached thousands more people in workshops and local events, farmers markets and CSAs, gardener networks, youth programs, volunteer days, and fresh food donations. Also, via regional and national conference presentations, we reached over 500 practitioners and scholars across many disciplines and fields. We also reached about 200 college students via guest seminars and another 80 in classes taught by Food Dignity team members in the academic partner institutions. At UW, a total of 30 students have enrolled in (27) or graduated from (3) the new sustainability minor developed as part of the Food Dignity project, with two of the three graduates in the food system track and 6 of the 27 currently enrolled in that track. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Undergraduates: We have provided intern and other mentee opportunities to 15 undergraduate students this past year through project-based coursework and paid summer internship. See also the UW minor information in "audience" above. Graduates: We have supported five masters' students, three PhD students in total; three of the students will finish in May 2016 and the rest have graduated. One of the PhD graduates now works with Food Dignity as a post-doctoral researchers, one of the masters' students is working full time on a new and related research project as a research scientists, and several of the students are still helping us as research assistants part time. Technical personnel: one lab technician works part time at Cornell University assisting with garden harvest measures at Cornell University. Community-based researchers and leaders: dozens this year have received financial, technical and/or mentoring support from community organizers and leaders who are Food Dignity partners. Academic and community partners and co-investigators in Food Dignity: 16 of us participated in a 3-day digital storytelling workshop with StoryCenter and 7 of us in a writing workshop. Our last national meeting included networking with and learning from activists, government workers, and academics in New Orleans and, as always, each other. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The main modes of our dissemination done in year five (since March 2015) are summarized below. Presentations at national or international conferences: 16 Journal and chapter publications: 6 Practice brief: 1 Additional web presence (plus project website, www.fooddignity.org): Paths to Food Dignity (http://tinyurl.com/fooddignityplaylist) A collection of digital stories by members of the Food Dignity team with StoryCenter in 2015: My New Life by Mike Silva of Dig Deep Farms, Alameda County Deputy Sheriffs' Activities League, Cherryland and Ashland, California Fresh Start by Pac Rucker of Dig Deep Farms When Good Food Makes for Good Policing by Marty Neideffer of Dig Deep Farms Responsibilities are... Responsibilities by Jim Sutter of Blue Mountain Associates, Wind River Indian Reservation, Wyoming. Growing Gardens... and Kids by Etheleen Potter of Blue Mountain Associates and Northern Arapaho Tribal Health The Grace to Receive by Lina Dunning of Feeding Laramie Valley, Laramie, Wyoming Food in Wyoming by Reece Owens of Feeding Laramie Valley Seeing Differently by Sarita Daftary-Steel of East New York Farms!, United Community Centers, Brooklyn, New York My Food Justice Story Starts Here by Daryl Marshall of East New York Farms! An Agricultural Place by David Vigil of East New York Farms! Sankofa by Jemila Sequeira of Whole Community Project, Cornell Cooperative Extension-Tompkins County, Ithaca, New York Roots Rising by Damon Brangman of Whole Community Project A View from Home by Alyssa Wechsler of University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming Field Notes by Katie Bradley of University of California, Davis, California Learning to Hear by Monica Hargraves of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York The Truth about Magic by Christine Porter of University of Wyoming Tracing the Paths: Telling Stories of Food Dignity (short documentary) by Matthew Luotto with StoryCenter What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?At the end of our sixth (no-cost-extension) year, we will be relaunching our website to provide a comprehensive guide and access to the outputs and outcomes of our five years of Food Dignity which will meet or exceed our project objectives.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In 2010, we wrote in our proposal to USDA/NIFA/AFRI that: "Our project title, 'Food Dignity,' signals both our ethical stance that human and community agency in food systems is an end in itself and our scientific hypothesis that building civic and institutional capacity to engage in sustainable community food systems for food security action will improve the sustainability and equity of our local food systems and economies." Obviously, the ethical stance still stands. On that front, we count among our most significant accomplishments the development of and trying to live our guiding values (see www.fooddignity.org/about) and the growth with our team in individual and community agency in our collective work and in our individual and institutional work for good food systems. That ethical/axiological stance applies regardless of the scientific results from our project. However, our results do suggest that the capacity investments we made in each other and in our communities during our collaboration (e.g., in the form of minigrants, mentorship, travel support, training, equipment, network connections) have resulted in increases - however minor - in equity in civic participation in shaping our food systems for food security and in access to food and to food system related resources and - of course - in knowledge about how to foster these changes. Our research has also included testing ecological sustainability hypotheses related to the productivity of home gardening and garden-scale cover cropping. Most of our work will be disseminated during our sixth no-cost-extension year. However, some of our results are described below. Community Case Studies: Community partners in Food Dignity have historically tended to focus on micro-to-mini scale vegetable production or production facilitation, developing technical skills, cultivating and mentoring community leaders (including youth), improving access to fruits and vegetables, creating income generation opportunities, undoing racism, and networking people and organizations relevant to food systems. Arenas with less action have included national or state policy change; labor and gender issues; food processing, transport and waste; medium to large scale production; and raising animals other than bees. Mentoring and supporting leadership development among people and communities most impacted by food insecurity is a top but hugely under-funded priority. Support Package: One partner organization described the benefits of the support package: "The biggest assets... have been the longevity, the flexibility, and the degree of control over the use of funding. Change takes time, and the length of Food Dignity's investment in our work has allowed us to grow, change, and plan for the future. With that, we have found that the flexibility has really allowed us to be honest about the fact that we were going to learn a lot along the way, and that we would continue to develop our ideas about how to best utilize the package. Finally, we have had a great deal of control over how to use our support package (in contrast to many foundation and government grants), which allows us to define the terms and parameters of our work." However, a one-size package does not fit all. The support package cannot support an entire organization, a particular problem for the "youngest" organizations in the partnership. Additionally, managing many small amounts for minigrants and stipend-based work (e.g. community researchers or organizers) is a burden for smaller organizations. Given the same resources, some organizations might prefer to support more staff time. Each partner has at least in part used the package, as one community partner puts it, "as an investment in attracting, cultivating, and supporting food systems leaders of all ages in our community." Selected results from minigrants and other community initiatives: Half of the participants in a gardening workshop received $40 microgrants. Grantees were significantly more likely to start new gardens and to expand existing gardens than controls. BMA has founded and hosted five successful seasons of the Wind River Indian Reservation Farmers Market Pride, connectedness, leadership development, and economic development have been themes in the reported benefits of the minigrant programs (over 50 projects have been or are being supported to date) which, overall, are one of the most appreciated parts of the support package along with travel and leadership development support. The average 253 square foot plot among the Laramie gardeners of mixed expertise participating in our harvest quantification project produced enough to supply one adult with daily recommended vegetables for 9 months of the year, even in their 4b climate zone. Project Case Study: The Food Dignity collaboration is proving to be a potent learning ground for how universities, extension, and community based organizations can and should collaborate on action research in food systems. The partnership and its approach has been called "groundbreaking" by national leaders and won the Community Campus Partnerships for Health annual award in 2014. Key strategies have included sharing funding, investing in leadership development, creating a cross-organizational team of project advisors and leaders, and hiring people who are adept at bridging the many "worlds" in which members of this very diverse team live. Having five years for this work (rather than a more usual two to three year project) has also been essential for our ability to conduct this action research together. The team-authored values statement (available on our website under "about") largely captures the process practices to which we aspire and which have enabled our work. From an academic standpoint, it helps to frame this work not as trans-disciplinary, but post-disciplinary, and to follow activists in the food movement as the primary experts; many have been leading this work for decades longer than most academic disciplines (much less individual academics) have been paying attention to it.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2016 Citation: Conk, S. & Porter, C.M. (forthcoming) Food gardeners productivity in Laramie, Wyoming: more than a hobby. American Journal of Public Health. (will be open access)
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Daftary, S., Porter, C.M., Gervais, S., Marshall, D. & Vigil D. (forthcoming in 2016) What grows in East New York: a case study of East New York Farms! and examination of expectations of urban agriculture. In C. Bosso & R.L. Sandler (Ed.), Feeding Cities: Improving Local Food Access, Security, and Sovereignty, to be published in late 2016 by Earthscan/Routledge: New York.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Porter, C.M., McCrackin, P. & Naschold, F. (2015, epub ahead of print) Minigrants for community health: a randomized controlled trial of their impact on family food gardening. Journal of Public Health Management & Practice.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Daftary, S., Herrera, H. & Porter, C.M. (2015) The unattainable trifecta of urban agriculture. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 6(1): 1932 http://www.agdevjournal.com/attachments/article/608/JAFSCD-Unattainable-Trifecta-Urban-Ag-December-2015.pdf (open access)
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Decolonizing Food Justice: Naming, Resisting, and Researching Colonizing Forces in the Movement. (open access) Bradley, K., and Herrera, H. (2016) Antipode. 48(1).
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Agroecological and socioeconomic characteristics of New York City community gardens: Contributions to urban food security, ecosystem services, and environmental education. Gregory, M.M., T.W. Leslie, and Drinkwater, L.E. (2015, epub ahead of print) Urban Ecosystems.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Paths to Food Dignity (open access) A collection of digital stories by members of the Food Dignity team with StoryCenter (2015) tinyurl.com/fooddignitystories.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Growing Young Leaders: Lessons from the East New York Farms! Youth Internship Program. (open access) A practice brief building on ENYF! experience. Daftary-Steel, S. (2015)
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Practicing food justice at Dig Deep Farms & Produce, East Bay Area, California: self-determination as a guiding value and intersections with foodie logics. Bradley, K. and Galt, R.E. (2014) Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability. 19(2): 172-186.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2016 Citation: Porter, C.M. "Fringe to Frontier: Food Dignity notes on who/how to build sustainable community food systems." Presentation at USDA/NIFA/AFRI Sustainable Food Systems PD Workshop. February 2, 2016. Washington D.C.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Porter, C.M. and Sequeira, E.J. Grow dignity, democracy, diversity to grow good food systems. Invited presentation at the Enhancing Food Security in the Northeast through Regional Food Systems (EFSNE) workshop. December 2015. Bethesda, MD.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Panel with four presentations by Food Dignity partners on Food Dignity as Project, Radical Dignity as Process: exploring the impact of community-academic relationships on a U.S. action research project. ALARA World Congress. November 2015. Pretoria, South Africa.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Porter, C.M. Extending Tribal Dignity, Resilience and Sovereignty. Invited plenary lunch presentation at the Federally Recognized Tribes Extension Program Professional Development Meeting hosted by USDA. September 2015. Reno, NV.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Bradley, K., M. Neideffer, and H. Bass. "Complicit and Resistant? What local government support for an urban farm means for the neoliberal critique." Presentation at Agriculture, Food, and Human Values/ Association for the Study of Food and Society Annual Meeting. June 26, 2015. Pittsburgh, PA
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Porter, C.M. and Woodsum, G.M. Yielding results that count: lessons from Food Dignity about scientific knowledge versus/and social justice. Invited presentation at the Union of Concerned Scientists Food Equity Meeting. June 4, 2015. Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Porter, C.M. Its the people, stupid: the Food Dignity action research project schools the PI. Invited presentation at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. June 3, 2015. Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Bradley, K. "Infusing Racial Analysis and Tightening Political Ecological Subfields: an urban farmer field school case study." Presentation at Association of American Geographers. April 24, 2015. Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Reynolds, K., Block, D.R., Agyeman, J., Bradley, K., Herrera, H., Graddy-Lovelace, G., Herman, R., and Oliva, J. "Food Justice Scholar-Activist Community of Praxis." Panel presentation at Association of American Geographers. April 22, 2015. Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Daftary-Steel, S., Herrera, H., and Porter, C. The Unattainable Trifecta of Urban Agriculture. Presentation at Feeding Cities: Ethical and Policy Issues in Urban Food Systems. March 27, 2015. Northeastern University, Boston, MA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Daftary-Steel, S., Lukats, P. Foundations for Success: Growing a Community Based Food Project. Presentation at Just Food Conference. March 2015. New York, NY.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Tamara, J., Myers, G.P., Sequeira, J., Washington, K., and Aponte, R. "Focus Group Discussion on the Experience of People of Color in Food Systems Work." Group discussion sponsored by North American Food Systems Network, eXtension, Community, and Local & Regional Food Systems Community of Practice. March 2, 2015. Webinar
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Peters, S.J., Armstrong, J.A., Hargraves, M. "A New Measuring Stick: Reclaiming and Assessing Cooperative Extension's Core Cultural Purpose." Paper presentation at Century Beyond the Campus: Past, Present, and Future of Extension, A Research Symposium Marking the 100th Anniversary of the Smith-Lever Act. September 25, 2014. Morgantown, WV.


Progress 04/01/14 to 03/31/15

Outputs
Target Audience: Within our partnership of nine organizations and three dozen people, the Food Dignity project aims to engage people impacted most by food insecurity, community leaders, and university faculty and students in creating and learning how to create sustainable community food systems that generate food security. Our main focus during the project (slated to end in March 2016) is to engage people and to learn how to engage people as actors (as opposed to as audiences) in shaping local food systems. In 2014 with NIFA support, the five community partner organizations directly engaged hundreds of community members in community food system action and education. This includes 26 minigrantees and dozens of steering committee members and 50 community-based researchers directly supported with NIFA funding. In 2014 we also established a community leadership development action research program with NIFA support, with each of the five community partners investing at total of $21,000 over two and a half years in trying and assessing leadership development strategies, such as food policy tours and training and mentoring investments. So far about a dozen emerging leaders have been supported with these funds. Through their community-based activities, partners reached thousands more people, such as workshop participants (e.g., the East Bay Farmer Field School series supported in part by NIFA-funded staffing), vendors and customers at farmers markets and of CSAs, home and community gardener networks, youth programs, and fresh food donations. Also, via regional and national conference presentations, we reached over 600 practitioners and scholars across many disciplines and fields. We also reached about 400 college students via guest seminars and another 200 in classes taught by Food Dignity team members in the academic partner institutions. At UW, nearly two dozen students have enrolled in the new sustainability minor developed as part of the Food Dignity project, with four having declared they will follow the food system track. In Ithaca, over 50 people participated in a public workshop on developing community-connected food system minors, possibly linked between the three higher education institutions in the County (Cornell University, Ithaca College, and Tompkins County Community College). Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Food Dignity provides opportunities for training and professional development for undergraduate students, graduate students, technical personnel, and community researchers. Undergraduate students (in addition to "target audience" information above): FLV hosted five summer student interns from UW to assist with and learn from community food systems work. Porter at UW mentored 5 students in developing a "Cowboy Food for the Community" program, to share UW dining food with the local soup kitchen. She also mentored the 18 students in her Food, Health and Justice class in creating and staging a new monthly trial food pantry in Laramie. Graduate students Four masters students (including an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho tribe from the Wind River Reservation) are supported by NIFA Food Dignity funding at the University of Wyoming. Two PhD students have been supported in part by NIFA Food Dignity funding at Cornell University. Several other graduate students have been retained on small stipends to help develop the sustainable food systems minor and with literature reviews for case studies. Technical personnel Part-time work for lab technician to assist with soil analysis and garden harvest measures at Cornell University. Community researchers, leadership development The activities under "target audience" all are mentored by more experienced community organizers and leaders including Food Dignity staff. Academic and community partners in Food Dignity Most members of the team have participated in regional and/or national workshops this year for networking, professional development, and/or to disseminate our Food Dignity findings. Our annual meetings include anti-racism workshops for the circa 35 participants each year. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Information about and results of the Food Dignity project have been disseminated to communities of interest via numerous national and local efforts (listed below). Numbers of presentations, publications, events, and media conducted in year three (since April, 2014) along with details of the Food Dignity web presence are outlined below. Overall, we have averaged one national or international presentation nearly each month since our inception. Presentations at national conferences (10) Local or regional presentations (>8) Publications (7; including 1 retrospective case study, 1 conference paper, 5 locally-distributed community reports or publications, and one practice brief. Additionally, there is one publication currently in press due for release in 2015) Trainings and Workshops (11) Events (>5; including a community-led food summit joint run by Wind River Reservation and Albany County leaders, and a public meeting to explore the possibilities of building relationships between local academic institutions, community food organizations, producers, and activists) Media coverage of Food Dignity work (17; including a short video about Food Dignity aired at a UWYO football game for the UWYO Scholarly Series. There were over 25,000 attendees at the game who saw the video) Web presence Food Dignity website, updated at the end of 2014, including mobile compatibility (www.fooddignity.org) Community partner websites (www.digdeepcsa.com; www.eastnewyorkfarms.org; http://ccetompkins.org/community/whole-community-project; http://www.bluemountainassociates.net; www.feedinglaramievalley.org) Community partner and project Facebook pages Ithaca Garden Harvest Log Blog (http://blogs.cornell.edu/ithacaharvestlog) Storying the Foodshed Blog (http://blogs.cornell.edu/foodstories) The Garden Ecology Project Blog (http://blogs.cornell.edu/gep/gardeners/) Engaging Stories Blog (http://www.pokesalad.info/engagingstories/) East New York Farms! YouTube channel, including storycorps interviews with local gardeners (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLIv5g7BQt0; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUae50ZAV_s#t=66; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5P8fhkbWqM) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? No changes to the agency-approved application or plan for this effort.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1a The data gathering and analysis for the retrospective case studies, including thousands of primary documents and dozens of site visits and interviews, is largely completed. The ENYF! case study is now available as Prezi on our website, the DDF case study is published, and the others are in draft form. Discussion and key outcomes: Community partners in Food Dignity have historically tended to focus on micro-to-mini scale vegetable production or production facilitation, developing technical skills, cultivating and mentoring community leaders (including youth), improving access to fruits and vegetables, creating income generation opportunities, undoing racism, and networking people and organizations relevant to food systems. Arenas with less action have included national or state policy change; labor and gender issues; food processing, transport and waste; medium to large scale production; and raising animals other than bees. Objective 1b Major activities included community partners implementing all parts of the support package. Work included organizing the fourth year of the Wind River Reservation farmers market, hosting farmer field school workshops, and starting a new leadership development action research program as an additional component of the support package with each of the five community organizations. Data collected includes the annual reports from community partners about the support package, field notes at annual meetings, advisory calls, and site visits documenting how community partners use and modify the support package to better fit their communities' needs, and assessment of the package as part of objective 1c. Discussion and key outcomes include that mentoring and supporting leadership development among people and communities most impacted by food insecurity is a top but hugely under-funded priority. New knowledge outcomes about SFS for FS organizing challenges, opportunities and strategies include those reported previously, plus increasing evidence for centering people, rather than projects or processes, in understanding and supporting community food systems. The most effective parts of the package seem still to be supporting travel for development and/or dissemination and providing flexible financial support that recognizes, supports, and invests in community leadership and community member expertise. Objective 1c Major activities included supporting 26 additional minigrant projects and conducting process and preliminary outcome evaluations of the 28 projects funded in previous years. We continued document collection and analysis, stakeholder interviews with analysis, and participation/observation for the larger case studies, including a new component tracking the leadership development projects, such as the joint leadership summit held by WCP and BMA, the two Wyoming community partners. We have also begun implementing a new strategy for illustrating and creating an evaluation framework for the case studies with each community organization. This strategy employs parts of the Systems Evaluation Protocol developed by the Cornell Office for Research on Evaluation (see https://core.human.cornell.edu/research/systems/index.cfm). See also the discussion and outcomes for objective 1b. Notably this year, one of the community partners, DDF&P, was awarded the prestigious and highly competitive California Counties Innovation Award for 2014. While in the other four community partner organizations the action and research focus centers on "grassroots" leadership and action development, with DDF&P the research focus is more on how they are leveraging, networking and innovating with county government resources for SFS for FS organizing and development. Objective 1d Major activities included conducting another year of garden harvest counts from gardens with FLV and WCP. This year 15 gardeners in Laramie, WY - all repeats from the 2013 season - and 48 in Ithaca, NY collected harvest data. In Laramie we also piloted water input measures. In spite of the harsh climate, Laramie gardeners seem to produce at levels similar to those in Ithaca and both measures are comparable to the other recent garden harvest quantification studies and to commercial vegetable farms. Objective 2a (Fulfilled by Objectives 1a-d) Objective 2b Major activities included hosting the 5th all-team meeting of circa 35 partners in Ithaca, NY with a visit to ENYF! in Brooklyn, fostering individual relationships between partners to encourage learning and mentoring, and maintaining membership in the national eXtension community of practice in food systems. This year our work to model and understand how universities can and should support community-led SCFS for FS work earned us the 2014 Community Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) Award. We also developed our values statement to guide this work (see www.fooddignity.org/about/vision-and-values/). Porter is collaborating with the former CCPH director on a related academic paper, and four FD collaborators published a paper on this work in 2014. Key strategies have included sharing funding, investing in leadership development, creating a cross-organizational team of project advisors and leaders, and hiring people who are adept at bridging the many "worlds" in which members of this very diverse team live. Having five years for this work (rather than a more usual two to three year project) has also been essential for our ability to conduct this action research together. From an academic standpoint, it helps to frame this work not as trans-disciplinary, but post-disciplinary, and to follow activists in the food movement as the primary experts; many have been leading this work for decades longer than most academic disciplines (much less individual academics) have been paying attention to it. Objective 2c The UW sustainability minor, with a food system track option, started in August 2013. So far 12 students are officially enrolled with an additional 12 planning to enroll officially and currently taking the required courses. This is one of the most successful minors at UW. The community-university committee established to guide the food system track and its internship components has met several times, including receiving "Theatre of the Oppressed" training from one member and setting action and research priorities for the minor. FLV trained, mentored, and employed 6 student and community interns in the summer of 2014. Cornell and WCP are still collaborating to develop their minor, and Ithaca College is now also developing an SFS minor. That Ithaca team hosted 50 people in a workshop conducted by stakeholders in Virginia Tech's Civic Agriculture minor. Objective 2d Rather than develop traditional online courses in Year 5, we will develop digital stories that illustrate SCFS for FS activities and lessons from each community organization and from the project as a whole and make these available publically for educational and informational use. In February 2016, three people from each team will convene in Oakland for a one-week custom workshop on digital storytelling where we will produce dozens of case study stories and plan for a larger "projectumentary" that will disseminate the stories and lessons from each community partner organization and the overall project. The ENYF! retrospective case study, done in Prezi, is also an example of the kind of multi-media case study dissemination we have in mind for formal and informal educational use.

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Peters, S.J., Armstrong, J.A., Hargraves, M. "A New Measuring Stick: Reclaiming and Assessing Cooperative Extension's Core Cultural Purpose." Paper presentation at Century Beyond the Campus: Past, Present, and Future of Extension, A Research Symposium Marking the 100th Anniversary of the Smith-Lever Act. September 25, 2014. Morgantown, WV.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Porter, C.M. "Food Dignity: 3 1/2 years in 20 minutes." Presentation at USDA/NIFA/AFRI Sustainable Food Systems PD Workshop. September 29, 2014. Washington D.C.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Woodsum, G.M. "The Rocky Road to Power Equity in CBPR." Presentation at What Went Wrong? Reflecting and Learning from Community-Engaged Research Conference. July 11, 2014. Twin Cities, MN
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Bradley, K. "Growing the Food Justice Movement in the East Bay: Reflections on the East Bay Urban Farmer Field School (EBUFFS)." California Geographical Society. May 3, 2014. Los Angeles, CA.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Porter, C.M. "Establishing an academic agenda for creating equitable research partnerships." Roundtable discussion at the Community-Campus Partnerships for Health 13th International Conference. May 2, 2014. Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Porter, C.M., Woodsum, G.M., Herrera, H., Sequeira, E.S. "Will work for food dignity: striving for equity in our action research relations." Presentation at Community-Campus Partnerships for Health 13th International Conference. May 3, 2014. Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Woodsum, G.M., Richmond, A. "Bringing Research to Life Through Storytelling." Workshop Presentation. Third Annual Community Partner Forum. April 30, 2014. Chicago, IL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Bradley, K and Herrera, H., "Scholar activism and activist scholarship." Panelists and panel organizers Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers. April 10, 2014. Tampa, FL.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Gregory, M.M. & Peters, S.J. "Designing participatory action research (PAR) for educational, social, and environmental benefits: A case study of cover crop research with Brooklyn gardeners." Presentation. Ecological Society of America conference. August 6, 2013. Minneapolis, MN.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Woodsum, G.M., Bell, P., Sutter, V., Sutter, J., Lee, C., Mendoza, T. "Growing Food and Leaders across Wyoming's Cultural Divide." LocalFest. Dec 10, 2014. Lander, WY.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Porter, C.M. & Woodsum, G.M. "Food for Dignity and Democracy." Workshop presentation. UW 14th Consumer Issues Conference. October 9, 2014. Laramie, WY.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Bell, P. & Woodsum, G.M. "Local Foods Panel Presentation." Panel presentation. UW 14th Consumer Issues Conference. October 9, 2014. Laramie, WY.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Scott, H. "Ithaca's Community Garden Harvest Research." Food Dignity Team Meeting. May 13, 2014. Ithaca, NY.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Armstrong, J.A. "Local Food Politics." Guest Lecture. April 2014. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Woodsum, G. "Local Food Security." Panel presentation. League of Women Voters. February 6, 2014. Laramie, WY.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Armstrong, J.A. "Science, Epistemology, and Practice in Participatory Action Research." Presentation to Farmer-Centered Research and Extension. February 2014. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Armstrong, J.A. "Prometheanism and the Politics of Service." Presentation to the Office for Academic Diversity Initiatives' Community Advocates Program. November 2013. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2015 Citation: Gregory, M.M., T.W. Leslie, and L.E. Drinkwater. In review. Agroecological and socioeconomic characteristics of NYC community gardens: Understanding and enhancing contributions to urban food security, ecosystem services, and environmental education.
  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Daftary-Steel, S. (2014) "ENYF Retrospective Case Study." Food Dignity Case Study. Prezi version online at http://prezi.com/kixjpppdqbqz/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Porter, C.M., & Redmond, L. (2014). Labor and leadership: Women in US community food organizing. In J. Page-Reeves (Ed.), Women Redefining the Experience of Food Insecurity: Life Off the Edge of the Table. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. pp261-283. Read an excerpt from the book at http://womenlandandlegacy.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/excerpt-porter-redmond-gender-labor-lead-us-food-movement.pdf
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Porter, C.M., Herrera, H., Marshall D. & Woodsum, G.M., (2014) Shared voices, different worlds: process and product in the Food Dignity action research project. Practice-based paper in Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement. 7(1) 116-128. Online at http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/ijcre/article/view/3399/4043
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Porter, C.M., Herrera, H., and Woodsum, G.M. Let us count the ways: How CBPR leads to more rigorous research. Presentation at the American Public Health Association Annual meeting. November 2014. New Orleans, LA. (https://apha.confex.com/apha/142am/webprogram/Session40726.html)


Progress 04/01/13 to 03/31/14

Outputs
Target Audience: Within our partnership of nine organizations, the Food Dignity project aims to engage people impacted most by food insecurity, community leaders, and university faculty and students in creating and in learning how to create sustainable community food systems that generate food security. Our main focus during the project (slated to end in March 2016) is to engage people and to learn how to engage people as actors (as opposed to as audiences) in shaping local food systems. This year using NIFA support, the five community partner organizations directly engaged at least 120 community members – many of whom experience or have experienced food insecurity – in doing and/or studying food security work. This includes 28 minigrantees, 36 steering committee members, and over 50 community-based researchers. Through community-based activities, they reached thousands more, such as vendors and customers at farmers markets (including one established with NIFA support in Wind River Indian Reservation), youth programs (such as ENYF!’s 35 annual youth interns and the teen farmers in the WCP-supported Youth Farm), and fresh food donations (including weekly produce bags filled to order by FLV for the nearly 60 residents in Laramie Senior Housing). In addition, over 500 students at CU, UW and IC were exposed to the Food Dignity work through coursework and guest lectures and, within that, 138 participated directly in community action and action research. (These students are in addition to students with staffing roles in the project.) The coursework included three university courses taught by Food Dignity team members this year that were centered on SCFS for FS themes. In more traditional dissemination, we have given 33 presentations at national or international conferences, about one per month on average since inception. This includes 8 this year, reaching over 115 people. We have published four journal papers sharing our work and hosted dozens of workshops (e.g., on cover cropping in Brooklyn) and local presentations reaching hundreds more. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Food Dignity provides opportunities for training and professional development for undergraduate students, graduate students, technical personnel, and community researchers. The student engagement section under “Accomplishments” in this report describes the general involvement of undergraduates in community food system work through FD. Other specific opportunities offered in year three of the project are outlined below. Undergraduate students (see also accomplishments, above) FLV hosted four, half-time student interns from UW to assist with and learn from community food systems work Graduate students Three graduate students (including an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho tribe from the Wind River Reservation) are supported by NIFA Food Dignity funding at the University of Wyoming. Two graduate students are supported by NIFA Food Dignity funding at Cornell University. Several other graduate students have been retained on small stipends to help develop the sustainable food systems minor and with literature reviews for case studies. Technical personnel Part-time work for lab technician to assist with soil analysis and garden harvest measures at Cornell University. Part-time work for a research assistant at the University of Wyoming to help with harvest measures, website development, and overseeing undergraduate interns. Community researchers, leadership development The activities under “target audience” all are mentored by more experienced community organizers and leaders and, when relevant, supported by Food Dignity staff. Academic and community partners in Food Dignity Ten members of the team have participated in regional and national workshops this year for networking, professional development, and to disseminate our Food Dignity findings. Our annual meetings include anti-racism workshops for the circa 35 participants each year. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Information about and results of the Food Dignity project have been disseminated to communities of interest via numerous national and local efforts (listed below). During the annual team meeting in 2013 (conducted in Laramie, WY), the Food Dignity team hosted a press conference that led to a story in the Associated Press and articles about the project in local newspapers across Wyoming. Numbers of presentations, publications, events, and media conducted in year three (since April, 2013) along with details of the Food Dignity web presence are outlined below. Overall, we have averaged one national or international presentation nearly each month since our inception. Presentations at national conferences (11) Local or regional presentations (>6) Publications (7; including 1 peer reviewed journal article, 1 conference paper, 3 locally-distributed community reports or publications, and two practice briefs. Additionally, there are two publications currently in press due for release in 2014) Community events (12; for example, an intergenerational breakfast at ENYF!, workshops on seed saving and irrigation at DDFP, and a hands-on workshop by FLV on gardening in Laramie’s harsh climate) Media coverage of Food Dignity work (10) Web presence Food Dignity website (www.fooddignity.org) Community partner websites (www.digdeepcsa.com; www.eastnewyorkfarms.org; http://ccetompkins.org/community/whole-community-project; http://www.bluemountainassociates.net) Community partner and project Facebook pages Ithaca Garden Harvest Log Blog (http://blogs.cornell.edu/ithacaharvestlog) Storying the Foodshed Blog (http://blogs.cornell.edu/foodstories) East New York Farms! YouTube channel, including storycorps interviews with local gardeners (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLIv5g7BQt0; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUae50ZAV_s#t=66; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5P8fhkbWqM) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? No changes to the agency-approved application or plan for this effort.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? While there is substantial community food system organizing in the US, research on its impact is limited. Food Dignity is identifying effective and scalable community-based strategies to create sustainable food systems for food security. Food Dignity also is building individual and institutional capacities and civic infrastructure for supporting food system action and research. Objective 1a Major activities Visiting extensively with community partners Case study data gathering, analysis, and interpretation Data collected Collected, sorted, and coded over 3000 files that document each of the five organizational cases, including local sociopolitical and historical contexts Conducted dozens of stakeholder interviews and generated over one hundred sets of field notes Photovoice and video add audio and visual components to the case studies Discussion and key outcomes We are not ready to report publically on most aspects of this objective. Provisional analysis of food system action indicates that participating organizations historically tended to focus on micro-to-mini scale vegetable production of facilitation of production; developing technical skills and leadership, improving access to fruits and vegetables for food insecure groups, creating income generation opportunities, undoing racism, and networking people and organizations relevant to food systems. Arenas with less action include national or state policy; labor and gender issues; food processing, transport and waste; medium to large scale production; and raising animals other than bees. Objective 1b Major activities: Community partners implemented all parts of the support package. Work included organizing the third year of the Wind River Reservation farmers market, hosting horticultural workshops, and starting front-yard communal gardens. Data collected Annual reports from community partners about the support package Field notes at annual meetings, advisory calls, and site visits documenting how community partners use and modify the support package to better fit their communities’ needs Assessment of the package as part of objective 1c. Discussion and key outcomes The most effective parts of the package seem to be supporting travel for development and/or dissemination and providing flexible financial support that recognizes, supports, and invests in community leadership and community member expertise. Limitations of the package include that funds do not support an entire organization, a particular challenge for young organizations; given the same resources, some organizations prefer to support more staff time with fewer slots for stipended work that requires management and mentorship from staff; and positioning central staff and students to be helpful to both community partners and to the central research goals is challenging. This year we reorganized and lateralized some management and communication in the project, with early success. Objective 1c Major activities Supporting 28 community food security endeavors to date including cooking lessons for an after-school program helping “held back” teens to move up a grade and restoring varieties of Indian corn. Conducting a controlled trial on impact of $40 microgrants to prospective home gardeners Hosting a farmers’ market on the Wind River Indian Reservation Assessing how best to advertise, review, distribute, and evaluate minigrant applications with community members who, in many cases, have never previously applied for grant money Data collected, discussion, and key outcomes Communities track qualitative and quantitative process and outcome data for community minigrant programs. We conducted a controlled trial that randomly provided $40 minigrants to half of 60 participants in a gardening workshop. Minigrantees were significantly more likely to start new gardens and to expand existing gardens than controls. A manuscript detailing the results of this work will be submitted for publication in 2014. This year Blue Mountain Associates (BMA) hosted eight markets with a total of 57 vendor stalls over the season. In addition to expanding food access and revenue generation opportunities, the market manager observed that the market is “the only place that whites, Shoshones, and Arapahos socialize.” Objective 1d Major activities: We conducted pilot harvest counts from gardens with FLV and WCP. This year 29 gardeners in Laramie, WY and 22 in Ithaca, NY collected harvest data. Data collected: Gardeners weighed every harvest for the entire growing season. Discussion: Home gardens produce nutritionally relevant amounts of food with productivity comparing favorably to vegetable farms. E.g., in Laramie, the average 300 ft2 plot produced enough vegetables to supply an adult with the USDA-recommended 2.5 cups a day for most (72%) of a year. Key Outcomes: A City of Laramie Recreation policy proposal (expected to pass in 2014) has slated six additional city parks to host community gardens. Using harvest data, FLV is also working for a policy of reducing water rates for people who grow food gardens in their yards. Nationally, we will look at implications for the role of home gardening in health and agriculture practice and policy. Success in the harvest measures led Food Dignity partners in Laramie and the Wind River Reservation to collaborate in designing a pilot project, called “Growing Resilience” that tests the health impacts of home food gardens, including on food security. The team will be applying to NIH for support for a full randomized controlled trial of home gardens as health interventions. Objective 2a (Fulfilled by Objectives 1a-d) Objective 2b Major activities Hosted 4th all-team meeting of circa 35 partners in Laramie, WY with a visit to Wind River Indian Reservation Fostered individual relationships between partners to encourage learning and mentoring Maintained membership in the national eXtension community of practice in food systems Data collected, discussion, and key outcomes: The collaboration itself is a learning ground for how universities, extension, and community-based organizations can collaborate on action research in food systems. The partnership and its approach have been called “groundbreaking” by national leaders in community organizing and in translational health research. Key strategies include sharing funding, investing in leadership development, creating a cross-organizational team of project advisors and leaders, and hiring people who are adept at bridging diverse communities. Objective 2c The UW sustainability minor, with a food system track option, started in August 2013. A community-university joint committee formed to guide the food system track and mentorship and placement of student interns. Cornell University worked with community partner Whole Community Project to establish a community-university planning committee tasked with bringing in external speakers to discuss how to design the sustainable food systems minor at Cornell. Cornell University and Ithaca College offered courses to facilitate student engagement and service learning with and from community food systems. Cornell University has shared its sustainable food systems educational work via a blog, “Storying the Foodshed” (http://blogs.cornell.edu/foodstories). Gayle Woodsum of community partner Feeding Laramie Valley (FLV) mentored upper-level technical writing classes at UW, guiding student team work on contributing to the FLV case study. Since June 2012, over 150 university students have been directly and substantively engaged in community food system work in some capacity with Food Dignity partners, with over 100 more being exposed to the work via field trips and guest lectures. Objective 2d: Work on this objective will occur in years 4 and 5.

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Porter, C.M., Herrera, H., Marshall, D., and Woodsum, G.M. (2013) "Shared Voices, Different Worlds: process and product in the Food Dignity action research project." Paper for CU Expo. June 12-15, 2013. Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, Canada.
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Porter, C.M., Sequeira, E.J. & Woodsum, G.M. (2013) Who is the public in public health and food systems: examining community food organizing and health collaborations in New York and in Wyoming. A report to Kettering Foundation, part 2 of 2.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Woodsum, G.M., Porter, C.M., Herrera, H., & Marshall D. "Shared Voices, Different Worlds - Food Dignity research team Presentation at CU Expo. June 12-15, 2013. Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, Canada.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Herrera, H. "The Ecology of Food Justice." Presentation at the Association for the Study of Food and Society. June 19-22, 2013. East Lansing, MI.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Armstrong, J. A. "Utilizing Pedagogies of Discomfort to Confront Supremacism in Community-Campus Partnerships."� Paper presented at the Association of Humanist Sociology Annual Conference.�October 9-13, 2013. Washington, DC.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Herrera, H. and Bradley, K. "Decolonizing Food Justice." Paper presentation at Yale Food Systems Symposium, October 18-19, 2013. Yale University, New Haven, CT.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Porter, C.M., Herrera, H., Marshall, D., Sequeira, E.J., Sutter, V., Vigil, D., and Woodsum, G.M. Will work for Food Dignity: A workshop on making research serve food justice. Panel and workshop at Yale Food Systems Symposium, October 18-19, 2013. Yale University, New Haven, CT.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Porter, C.M. & Redmond, L. "Labor and leadership: women in US community food organizing. Oral presentation at Yale Food Systems Symposium, October 18-19, 2013. Yale University, New Haven, CT.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2014 Citation: Porter, C.M. & Redmond, L. Labor and leadership: women in US community food organizing. Invited chapter to be published in edited, peer-reviewed volume Off the Edge of the Table: Women Redefining the Limits of the Food System and the Experience of Food Insecurity, ed. Janet Page-Reeves. Chapter entering peer review November 2013. Publication in 2014 by Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: Porter, C.M., Herrera, H., Marshall D. & Woodsum, G.M., (accepted for 2014 publication, under editorial review) Shared voices, different worlds: process and product in the Food Dignity action research project. Practice-based paper in Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement.


Progress 04/01/12 to 03/31/13

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Food Dignity (FD) external outputs in year two included continuing to improve and expand our website (www.fooddignity.org), giving 12 national presentations and several local and regional ones, and publishing three related papers in peer-reviewed journals. Our internal action, research, and collaboration continued. We held our third team meeting of about 35 people May 2012 in Detroit and are preparing for our fourth, to be held in Wyoming in May 2013. Developing retrospective and prospective case studies about the what, why, when and how of each community partner's SCFS for FD work is our primary research objective and in our second year we coded the remaining retrospective case documents, finished retrospective interviews, and have continued prospective data gathering. CU, UW, and C-PREP partners visited each community partner multiple times. Each community partner has continued and expanded their community food system building work, leveraging USDA NIFA support to expand action and participation and to collaborate in research. In education, UW and CU continued research and collaboration towards the formation of sustainable food system minors. A community organizer collaborating with FD has taken a leadership role with Community Campus Partnerships for Health in an effort to establish equitable research collaboration practices. Porter and other Food Dignity partners have also become involved with CCPH. IC offered a community-engaged course on food justice to its students, with an evaluation component for FD. PARTICIPANTS: In addition to the nearly 40 people directly involved in the FD team, the community partners have engaged over 100 additional partners and collaborators locally to join in their action and action research work as volunteers, steering committee members, minigrantees, community researchers, and Photovoice participants. TARGET AUDIENCES: In addition to the learning among the direct project participants and their collaborators, the Ithaca and Laramie-based community organizers have directly reached at least 360 students at Cornell, UW and Ithaca College through internships and classwork on building sustainable and just community food systems. Through our presentations and publications so far we have shared knowledge gained in this project with hundreds, if not thousands, of others. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
We aim for impact in institutions, communities, policies, and practices that are relevant to food security. Examples where we have begun to succeed are below. One, our agroecology research aims to (a) quantify food harvests and other gains from home and community food gardening and (b) improve harvests through improving weed suppression and soil fertility through cover cropping. First year findings indicate that the cover cropping practice provides very effective weed suppression and nitrogen improvement in urban community gardens. The pilot harvest quantification project in the 56-day growing climate of Laramie, Wyoming indicated that participating home and community gardeners produced 1,265 pounds of vegetables worth over $4,000 on a total of 0.065 acres. Results of this work and a number of minigrant projects have led the Wyoming partners to begin a new action research pilot project, called Growing Resilience, about the impact of home gardens on health. Two, the minigrant research is tracking a total of $150,000 worth of funds granted to citizens who propose food security solutions in their communities. This will likely fund about 120 initiatives over three years. Beyond this group, this research will identify best practices for awarding and supporting such grants and document the impacts of such programs. For example, the lead partner in Wind River Indian Reservation leveraged the food production and preservation work of their first group of minigrantees and Food Dignity support for a new farmers market to build greater and more diverse vendor participation in their very successful second market year. Minigrants are showing promise as a low-cost, participatory, powerful, and empowering way to generate community-led food system change. Three, from the case study research, we are provisionally reporting organizing challenges that include cash flow issues limiting community action; staying funded while staying true to mission and vision; community leaders (e.g., some of the organizers working with Food Dignity) suffering systemic stresses of being subject to demands, judgment, and criticism from all sides; and developing new leadership (e.g., among people being supported by this funding) requiring intensive and long-term mentorship from existing leaders. Promising strategies appear to be setting goals for job creation and economic development, operating on explicit dignity and pride principles, engaging with youth, and investing financially in citizen solutions to community food insecurity and unsustainability - particularly through minigrants and supporting community-based researchers. We are also investigating appropriate roles for universities in supporting this community-led food system and security work. Promising approaches include sharing funding and control over funding allocations; recruiting (and paying) people who can bridge both worlds to coordinate and train students to support and learn from local food work; and creating action research teams that include citizens, organizers and academics to determine research questions, design and pilot methods, and disseminate findings.

Publications

  • Bradley, K., Galt, R.E. 2013. Practicing Food Justice at Dig Deep Farms & Produce, East Bay Area, California: self-determination as a guiding value and intersections with foodie logics. Local Environment. (in press)
  • Porter, C.M. 2013. Community action to prevent childhood obesity: Lessons from three US case studies. Childhood Obesity. (in press)
  • Pelletier, D.L., Porter, C.M., Aarons, G.A., Wuehler S.E., and Neufeld, L.M. 2013. Expanding the Frontiers of Population Nutrition Research: New Questions, New Methods, and New Approaches. Advances in Nutrition. 4; 92-114.
  • Bradley, K., Armstrong J., Arthur M., Herrera, H., & Porter, C.M. 2013. Making Academics Work for Justice-Oriented Food Networks: Graduate Student Experiences in Food Dignity. Presentation at Association of American Geographers. April 2013. Los Angeles, CA.
  • Woodsum, G.M., Herrera, H., Sutter, J. & Porter, C.M. 2012. Food Dignity. Poster at Community-Campus Partnerships for Health community partners meeting. December 2012. Washington, D.C.
  • Porter, C.M., Daftary, S., Herrera, H., Marshall, D., McCrackin, P., Neideffer, M., Sequeira, E.J., Sutter, V., and Woodsum, G.M. 2012. Food Dignity: Successes and struggles in community food system action research. Presentation at the American Public Health Association Annual meeting. October 2012. San Francisco, CA.
  • Gregory, M.M., Drinkwater L.E., Peters, S.J., Greig, D., Vigil, D. & Eck, E. 2012. Practicing agroecology in Brooklyn community gardens: Enhancing ecosystem services and gardener learning through collaborative inquiry on cover crops. Presentation at the 97th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America. August 2012, Portland, OR.
  • Porter, C.M. et al. Food Dignity: 2012. Growing and Learning from Community-Led Food Systems. Panel Presentation at the Annual meeting of the Agriculture, Food & Human Values Society. June 21, 2012. New York, NY.
  • Daftary, S., Marshall, D. 2012. East New York Farms! Strategies and experiences in the Food Dignity Partnership.
  • Gregory, M.M., Maymi, N.O., Greig, D., Peters, S.J., & Vigil, D. 2012. Practicing Agroecology in Brooklyn Community gardens: Learning together Through Collaborative Inquiry on Cover Cropping.
  • Porter, C.M., Daftary, S., Drinkwater, L., Gervais, S., Gregory, M.M., Herrera, H., Marshall, D., Peters, S.J., and Sequeira, E.J. 2012. Opportunities, Strategies, and Challenges in Collaborative Re-storying of Food Systems.
  • Herrera, H. 2012. Building Community from the Ground Up.
  • Sequeira, E.J. 2012. Whole Community Project Strategies and Experiences in the Food Dignity Partnership.
  • Porter, C.M., Daftary, S., Herrera, H., Neideffer, M., Sequeira, E.J., & Sutter, V. 2012. Food Dignity: five community food system stories. American Society for Nutrition Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology. April 2012. Seattle, WA.
  • Pelletier, D.L. & Porter, C.M. 2012. Expanding the frontiers of nutrition research: New questions, new methods and new approaches. Symposium session selected for American Society for Nutrition Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology. Presentation by Porter is Food Dignity: Action research frontiers in nutrition. April 2012. Seattle, WA.
  • Woodsum, G.M., Hubbell, C, McCrackin, P. 2012. The Road Not Taken: miracles and hazards of letting a project define itself. Story session at Community-Campus Partnerships for Health 15th anniversary conference. April 2012. Houston, TX.


Progress 04/01/11 to 03/31/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Food Dignity external outputs in year one included establishing our website (www.fooddignity.org), giving 10 national presentations and several local and regional ones, and producing our first practice brief. Our main focus, however, was internal action, research and collaboration. We filled all student and staff posts. We held our first two team meetings of about 35 people each, one in May 2011 in Ithaca and another in November 2011 in Oakland, and the May 2012 meeting in Detroit was organized. Developing retrospective and prospective case studies about the what, why, when and how of each community partner's SCFS for FS work is our primary research objective and in our first year we collected most of the retrospective data, developed a codebook, and began coding. CU, UW and Center for Popular Research, Education and Policy (C-PREP) partners visited each community partner multiple times. We conducted about half of the interviews desired. Garden harvest data was collected in the summer 2011 with East New York Farms! (ENYF!) The data was not complete enough to fulfill our quantification objectives, though taught us lessons about how to design collection in 2012 with ENYF! and two other Food Dignity partners. Also, Porter' masters student McCrackin conducted a controlled trial of minigrants for spurring food gardening. In action, the lead communities each rolled out their "community organizing support package," including hiring/retaining a half time organizer, establishing or identifying members for their steering committees, retaining community-campus coordinators [Feeding Laramie Valley (FLV) and Whole Community Project (WCP) only], identifying community-based researchers and, for two of the five, giving out their first minigrants. Each has continued and expanded their community food system building work, leveraging USDA NIFA support to expand action and participation and to collaborate in the research. In education, UW and CU each formed their sustainable food system minor committees. UW also largely designed their minor as a track within a larger sustainability minor. Porter developed and taught a new course for the minor. PARTICIPANTS: Partner organizations have not changed from the project's original plan. We have five community food system organizing partners (DDF&P, BMA, FLV, WCP and ENYF!), two universities (UW and CU), one college (IC), and an "action-think tank" (C-PREP). The key people with each organization are listed at www.fooddignity.org/about/partners. The only key personnel change has been that Miguel Gomez at CU stepped down as our economist to fill his major role with the Pennsylvania State project in this same funding stream. Monica Hargraves has stepped in, bringing her experience at Brown University, International Monetary Fund, Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins County, and now Cornell Cooperative Extension state-wide to our team for evaluating our $150,000 minigrant program. The community partners have engaged over 100 additional partners and collaborators locally to join in their action and action research work as volunteers, steering committee members, minigrantees, community researchers and Photovoice participants. In our first two team meetings we have engaged trainers for our team in Photovoice (from Kent Becker) and in anti-racism (from Malik Yakini with Hank Herrera). We arranged to build on our anti-racism training with Mr. Yakini during our May 2012 meeting in Detroit, including to connect with the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. Following our team meeting in Oakland, Food Dignity also used NIFA support to partially fund participation of community partners and students in the November 2011 Community Food Security Coalition meeting, including to co-facilitate our Food Dignity workshop there. NIFA also partly or completely supported three graduate students: Peggy McCrackin (with Porter), Megan Gregory (with Drinkwater) and John Armstrong (with Peters). (All three have also secured other funding sources beyond NIFA for their Food Dignity related work.) Woodsum of FLV also provided experience-based training to dozens of student volunteers and reached dozens more through guest workshops in UW classrooms in 2011 and early 2012. Hererra also guest lectured twice in UW courses. TARGET AUDIENCES: One of the project's learning goals is identifying the appropriate roles for academics and students in supporting the community food system development led by citizens, community based organizations and, sometimes, local extension organizations. Thus, Food Dignity's main "target audiences" in Year 1 were academics, health professionals and university students, reached through our 10 national presentations, several local presentations, and the training opportunities described above. Each of Food Dignity's community partners is using NIFA support to engage more citizens in their communities who are most affected by food insecurity not as audiences, but as actors. As we learn more about successful organizing and social change strategies with and from the community partners our audience will expand to other community based organizations and organizers doing this work. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
Though it is early in the project, we do have initial outcomes in our agroecological research. Megan M. Gregory is a PhD student of the lead agroecology investigator, Laurie Drinkwater. Megan works extensively with gardeners in Brooklyn, New York, especially those in the ENYF! network. In 2011, 50 Brooklyn gardeners in 15 community gardens planted legume-based cover crop combinations and this work is expanding in 2012. NIFA funds are partially supporting assessment of the impact of these cover crops on soil quality, nutrient cycling, and weed suppression. After six weeks, all cover crops provided excellent average soil cover (84-92%) and weed suppression (88-97% reductions in weeds compared to control plots). Gregory is currently compiling data from spring biomass sampling and will process plant samples to measure nitrogen fixation in the winter of 2012-2013. One of Gregory's community research partners in the ENYF! network, Brenda Thompson-Duchene, anecdotally reported that people seeing her weed-free garden in 2011 is spurring many to follow suit and try cover cropping. We have made some progress on our "knowledge" outcomes on understanding SCFS for FS organizing challenges, opportunities and strategies. We are provisionally reporting challenges that include: cash flow issues limiting community action; staying funded while staying true to mission and vision; community leaders (e.g., some of the organizers working with FD) suffering systemic stresses of being subject to demands, judgment, and criticism from all sides; and developing new leadership (e.g., among people being supported by FD funding) requiring intensive and long-term mentorship from existing leaders. Promising strategies appear to be setting goals for job creation and economic development, operating on explicit dignity and pride principles, and investing financially in citizen solutions to community food insecurity and unsustainability. We are also investigating appropriate roles for universities in supporting this community-led food system and security work. Promising approaches include sharing funding and control over funding allocations; recruiting (and paying) people who can bridge both worlds to coordinate and train students to support and learn from local food work; and creating action research teams that include citizens, organizers and academics to determine research questions and design and pilot methods.

Publications

  • Herrera, H. and Porter, C.M. 2011. You work for us: Complexities of community leadership in community-based public health. Roundtable presentation at American Public Health Association Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.
  • Porter, C.M. 2011. Practice and potential of catalyzed minigrants for democratic community health. Poster at American Public Health Association Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.
  • Food Dignity Practice Brief 1. February 2012. "Minigrants: Lessons from the Literature." http://www.fooddignity.org/stories/briefs
  • Woodsum, G.M. 2011. Achieving the promise of community-engaged health disparities research. Presentation at an invitational national community partner forum for Community-Campus Partnerships for Health. Boston, MA.
  • Bradley, K. 2011. Lessons from the Past and Present, for the Future: a case study of Dig Deep Farms & Produce, in Ashland CA. Invited presentation for the International Food and Nutrition Conference at Tuskegee University. Tuskegee, AL.
  • Porter, C.M. and Herrera, H. 2011. Introducing Food Dignity: A five-year action research initiative on building sustainable community food systems. Presentation at Joint Annual Meetings of AFHVS, ASFS, and SAFN. Missoula, MT.
  • Herrera, H. and Porter, C.M. 2011. The nexus of food systems, anti-hunger work and obesity prevention: Values, praxis, policies and politics in action. Presentation at the Joint Annual Meetings of AFHVS, ASFS, and SAFN. Missoula, MT.
  • Porter, C.M., Herrera, H. and Sequeira, E.J. 2011. Community food system approaches to preventing obesity and hunger in the U.S. Presentation at the American Society for Nutrition Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology. Washington, D.C.
  • Bradley, K., Herrera, H., Gong, S. and Porter, C.M. 2011. Food Sovereignty from the Roots. Presentation at the Society for Applied Anthropology. Seattle, WA.
  • Herrera, H., Marshall, D., Porter, C.M., Sequeira, E.J., Sutter, V., and Woodsum, G.M. 2011. Tapping the roots: radically democratic organizing for food dignity. Networking session at Community Food Security Coalition annual meeting. Oakland, CA.
  • Porter, C.M., Herrera, H. and Sequeira, E.J. 2011. Community food system organizing for obesity and hunger prevention in the US. Presentation at American Public Health Association Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.